New Findings Show Astounding Cancer Prevention Effects of Black Raspberries, Blueberries, Olive Leaves and Green Tea

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(NaturalNews) Three studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Philadelphia have demonstrated the powerful cancer-fighting benefits of dark berries, green tea and olive leaves, and suggest that gels and beverages may some day be used to prevent against cancer and tumor growth.

In the first study, researchers from Ohio State University discovered that a gel based on freeze-dried black raspberries helps prevent precancerous mouth tumors (lesions) from becoming malignant.

"This gel appears to be a valid means of delivering anthocyanins and other cancer-preventing compounds directly to precancerous cells, since it slowed or reduced lesion progression in about two-thirds of study participants," said researcher Susan Mallery.

According to the American Cancer Society, oral squamous cell carcinoma is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, causing 7,500 deaths each year in the United States. Because no chemopreventive agent or treatment method other than radical mouth surgery exists, even those who survive the cancer often emerge significantly disfigured. And even in many cases where tumors are fully removed, they still recur.

"Oral cancer is a debilitating disease and there is a desperate need for early detection and management of precancerous lesions," said Mallery.

Most mouth cancer begins as small, noncancerous lesions in the mouth that are difficult to detect. It was these lesions that were treated in the Ohio State University study.

Researchers carried out the study on 20 participants who had identifiable precancerous mouth lesions and 10 who were healthy to constitute a control group. Both groups were instructed to dry the sites of their lesions gently, or to dry a predetermined site in the control group. The black raspberry gel was then rubbed into the area after each meal and before bed, for a total of four applications daily.

The gel, made of 10 percent freeze-dried black raspberries, looks like jam, but does not contain the sugars that give berries their sweet taste.

After six weeks, a microscopic diagnosis of the lesions in the precancerous patients showed that 35 percent had improved, 45 percent had stabilized and 20 percent had worsened. No side effects were observed in either the experimental or control group.

Researchers also collected cell samples from participants' mouth lesions both before and after treatment. Before the treatment, the lesions showed elevated levels of two proteins, COX-2 and iNOS, that have been associated with increased inflammation and risk of malignancy. After treatment, the levels of these proteins decreased significantly.

In addition, many cells exhibited a genetic condition before treatment known as "loss of heterozygosity," in which a cell has lost one copy of a tumor-suppressing gene, leaving it with only one remaining copy. This condition greatly increases the chance that a cell will become cancerous, should the last copy of the tumor-suppressing gene be turned off for some reason or lost through mutation. After the treatment, however, many of the cells in the lesion sites were found to have regained a second copy of the gene.

"We speculate that the chemopreventive compounds in black raspberries assist in modulating cell growth by promoting programmed cell death or terminal differentiation, two mechanisms that help "reeducate" precancerous cells," Mallery said.

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